The Laredo Detention Center is an ICE-contracted immigration detention center. It is also called the Laredo Process Center, CCA Laredo, and Laredo Contract Detention Facility. The facility, located in Laredo, Texas is only a 10-minute drive from the US-Mexico Border. (Laredo, Texas is adjacent to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.) Accordingly, the facility houses many immigrants who were arrested shortly after crossing the border into the United States. In 2009, roughly 83% of those who left the Laredo Detention Center were Guatemalan nationals.

Contact Information

Contacting the Facility

Address:

Laredo Detention Center
4702 East Saunders Street
Laredo, Texas 78401

Phone:

(956) 727-4118

Contacting A Detainee

To speak to a detainee by phone, call (956)-727-4118 and leave a message for the inmate to call you back. Before you call, make sure and have ready the person’s full name and alien number. The facility will not directly connect you to an inmate. The best you can do then is to wait to receive a phone call back from the detainee. For practical reasons, you may want to include in your message a call-back time. That way you can be ready to available to receive the person’s call. Detainee phone calls are not free, so you will need to deposit money into a collect account.

To deposit money in a prepaid collect account, call Inmate Calling Solutions (“IC Solutions”) at (888)506-8407 or deposit money on their website.

To visit the a person held at the Laredo Detention Facility, go to the facility with photo ID during visitation hours: Monday between 1-3pm; Friday between 1-3pm; and on the weekends between 9-11am and 1-3pm.

Contacting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has an office next the detention facility. To reach an ICE deportation officer in Laredo, call (956) 729-9620. The officer in charge of the Laredo ICE office is Assistant Field Office Director (AFOD) Omar Juarez. The ICE Supervisory Deportation Officer at Laredo can be reached at (956) 729-9655. The Regional Field Office Director Michael Pitts, who heads the regional field office in San Antonio, can be reached at (210)283-4750 or (210) 283-4712.

Getting Released

Immigration Bonds

Some persons detained at Laredo Detention Center will be eligible for release on bond. You can find out if ICE has set a bond amount by calling the deportation officer assigned to the case at (956)729-9620. ICE officers will often refuse to speak to family members of detainees. If that happens, have an attorney speak to the officer directly. Often, ICE will not permit an inmate to be released on bond. Nonetheless, the inmate may be able to get a bond by requesting a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

Immigration bonds can be posted at any ICE ERO Field Office in the United States. For persons detained in Laredo, however, the fastest way to get a person released is by posting bond at the San Antonio ERO Field Office.

8940 Fourwinds Drive
San Antonio, Texas 78239

To contact the Bond Unit there, call (210)967-7012.

Post-Release

When an inmate is released from the Laredo Detention Center, ICE will drop him off either at a bus station or nearest airport.

The nearest Greyhound Bus Station is located at:

610 Salinas Avenue
Laredo, Texas 78040

The Laredo International Airport is located at:

5210 Bob Bullock Loop
Laredo, TX 78041

The Removal Process

Almost all detainees at Laredo Detention Center are charged with removability from the United States. That means that they will have to defend themselves against deportation, even if released from detention.

Immigration Court

Persons detained at the Laredo Detention Center are required to appear at the San Antonio Immigration Court via televideo. Currently, the only immigration judge handling cases in Laredo is Judge Gary D. Burkholder. Judge Burkholder is responsible, then, for hearing detainees claims for relief from deportation.

To send mail to the San Antonio Immigration Court, use the following address:

800 Dolorosa Street, Suite 300
San Antonio, Texas 78207

To check on a person’s case status, call (800) 898-7180.

Timeframe

Currently, it can take between 2-3 weeks for a person to see an immigration judge, from the time that he or she is detained. At Laredo, it takes, on average, 40 days for a person’s case to be completed.

Facility Background

The Laredo Detention Center is a contract detention facility. It is owned by the federal government, but operated by the Corrections Corporation of America. The facility, built in 1985, has bed space of 400. In 2009, the facility took in approximately 12,000 inmates. On an average day in 2009, the Laredo Detention Center housed roughly 250 male inmates and 56 female inmates. The facility averages an unusually high number of releases, because ICE uses the facility as a “staging area” for temporary holding and removal. This is most likely because of the facility’s proximity to the US-Mexico border.

Nearby Facilities

If you are having difficulty locating someone at the Laredo Detention Center, you may want to try contacting any the following immigration detention centers: